In the Forest of No Return
by Dark SpellMaster
Summary: When the Voltron team gets a clue that Matt or Shiro may be on the Planet Mezora, Pidge goes out on a limb to try to find them. However one crashed pod later, and she finds herself making a deal with a run away Galra prisoner in order to get off the planet. Can Pidge and her new friend make it off Mezora, or will Prince Lotor wind up catching the Green lion in his own trap.
1. Chapter 1: Pidge's Landing

In the forest of No Return

Pidge

Looking down at the map on the screen Pidge wrinkled her nose. _This can't be the right planet…can it?_ Her brows narrowed as she peered out her windshield of the cabin to the new pod she'd rigged up. Again she double checked the map and the read out she'd pulled up from the Castles directory about the known planets in Cluster KB-22, and the two worlds looked nothing alike.

From the screen she had up the ecology of Mezora was a dry and red looking place. Not yet able to support life fully, yet from what she could see outside of her cabin window there was lush viridian greens of earth, and blue water all around in river like lines that zigzagged around the planet itself. In the ten thousand years that Allura had been sleeping the planet had been remade into something that was habitable by some form of race.

Pidge gave out an annoyed grunt and commented over the com, "Are you sure you downloaded the right specs Lance?"

"Yes of course I am," Lance's annoyed reply came back, slightly fizzled due to the distance between her and the castle. "I checked it four times, like you asked, before I downloaded it in from the library. Are you sure you're up for this Pidge, you're being a bit…weird."

"I'm fine," she snapped back and then added a quick, "Sorry."

"Okay, okay, no need to bite," Lance said and added, "Hey, be careful down there."

"Will do," Pidge responded and slowly maneuvered down towards the surface of the planet below.

She knew the Castle was watching her movement through their tracking, only she couldn't see them. They were hiding, of course, behind the second smaller and farther moon of Mezora, so communications were being pushed not only from distance but from the waves of interference coming from the planet itself.

This whole exploration had been Pidge's idea in the first place, and now she was wondering if she should call it off.

The plan had come into her mind while they had landed at a small ice planet called Eios, where, tired from their search for Shiro, the group had decided to lay low and get some much needed rest. On and off they had been dealing with the Galra, who seemed to be in the midst of their own issues since Zarkon had been defeated. Not only had they been attacked by a Commander named Throk more than once, a group called the Tiger Fighters –who seemed to be under some sort of contract with Prince Lotor or someone who was working with him, and a group of fighters that were under Lotor's direct command, but they were also running low on supplies and Keith was still getting used to being the leader, much to Lance's annoyance.

Rest was needed, and it allowed the group to at least figure out what to do next. So far most of their leads about Shiro's where about were exhausted and everyone was in a rather gloomy mood.

Keith had taken it the hardest, feeling that he'd somehow failed Shiro, and had insisted they go back to the location where Zarkon's ship was to look for him. Coran had blasted that plan down pointing out that they didn't have enough reserve energy for it.

"We'd be sitting Farfellas," he'd told them as the group had congregated back on the bridge. Lance and Hunk had to pull Keith off of his lion so that he didn't run off, and eventually he'd calmed down enough to throw out his idea.

"Farfellas?" Lance asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You know, a type of creature that just sits there waiting for someone to take a shot at it." Coran explained and Lance glanced over at Pidge.

"I think he means, they're like a duck," she offered and Coran gave her a weird look.

"What's a duck?"

"I guess it's like a Farfella?" Lance responded and motioned with his hands as he tried to explain. "You know, a small bird that sits on the water. Has webbed feet, and flies, makes a quacking noise."

Coran looked amused and shook his head, "No, no, a Farfella looks more like a large lizard that has pointed teeth and will walk on its hind legs at night. Nasty thing in the morning, but at night as docile as a pinzwilder."

Pidge and Lance glanced sideways at each other than both let out a sigh, not wanting to bother trying to figure out what Coran was talking about. Keith, however, had been more than willing to keep the conversation going.

"Look, regardless of how much energy we have, we need to find Shiro it's…I…" he shook his head and looked down, dejected. Pidge glanced over to him as Hunk put a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't blame yourself, Keith. It's no one's fault."

"But I was the one that said we needed to grab him, I didn't even check to see…" Pidge quickly cut him off again and jumped off the railing where she was sitting.

"We were all trying to get in communication with him, Keith. We all thought something was wrong and that's why he wasn't responding."

"Yeah, it's not like you knew that he was going to disappear," Lance said pointedly, although his tone indicated something more. "Unless you did."

Keith looked up and narrowed his brows, "What do you mean by that?"

"Well I mean, you know, being Galra and all. How do we know you didn't make him vanish so you could try to lead us?" Lance crossed his arms and looked suspiciously at Keith. His eyes moved over to Hunk and Pidge. "Don't tell me you two didn't think that for a minute too."

Keith stared at his friends and looked between them, "Are you serious? Why would I want to hurt Shiro! He's…He's family to me!"

"Well so are they now," Lance pointed out as Pidge looked at Hunk and Allura for any help to diffuse the situation.

"I don't even know any of them!" Keith yelled and his fists tightened as he got closer to Lance. "Just exactly what are you accusing me of?"

"Nothing, yet." Lance returned the glare. "But I find it pretty odd that the minute you find out your part Galra, all of a sudden Shiro goes missing, then you proclaim yourself leader."

"I didn't _proclaim_ myself anything. Shiro asked me to lead if something happened to him." Keith was right up in Lance's face now and the two were glaring at one another with enough tension that you could cut it with a knife.

Off to the side Hunk quickly slipped over and got between them. "Okay, calm down. Let's everyone take a breather."

"Yeah, this isn't any way to deal with this," Pidge added and nodded with Hunk, then looked at Lance. "You know Keith, we've been working with him and he's stood up for you when we got attacked back when Sendak tried to come after the Castle remember."

"Yeah but, that was before he found out he was part Galra. I mean…" Lance stared then stopped.

"And Keith, I know you're upset over Shiro going missing but going back there and looking isn't the best of ideas. I mean most of our engines were blown out, and the systems need fixing…"

Keith sighed and leaned back as did Lance. "You're right," and he glanced at Lance who was looking a bit more humbled at the moment.

"We need to worry about the castle," Lance said and then held out his hand to Keith, "Sorry."

Keith quickly shook it, "We're both on edge right now."

"Yeah," Lance said then added, "But what makes you think you should be leader? Why can't I be the leader?"

"Shiro asked me, but…I guess, ultimately it's up to Allura." Keith motioned to the Princess who was now sitting down and thinking. All eyes turned on to her and she furrowed her brows.

"Let's consider that once we get the castle back to being fully operational. Then we can discuss our options and what to do next."

For the next several days that was all they did. With the help of Kolivan and Slav the Castle of Lions slowly regained its power and maneuverability. It didn't take long though before the team was caught up in a fight and forced to deal with it. The Tiger Fighters had located their position and forced four of the five lions out, and between Lance and Keith giving orders the group had a hard time keeping it together. Somehow they had made a win by the skim of their teeth, but the Lions had to be charged and with the Castle not at its peak condition this meant working on finding locations to gather supplies and deal with repairs while keeping several steps ahead of the Galra.

On the plus side, thanks to Zarkon being out of commission, as they assumed, the empire wasn't able to track them as readily. But this had a down side as it meant that they didn't have a clue where the Galra forces were, since the team was used to out maneuvering them after they were being traced. Now they had to go back and rely on reading transmission and listening to see where the communications were coming from.

While the Blade was helpful with its spies, without an agent on the inside like Thrace, things had become harder to figure out what the next move would be from the empire. It had come as a surprise to them when they had been confronted by Lotor's ship, and were forced to actually flee rather than fight him. The back and forth between dealing with the various groups had taken its toll not only on the Lions but the group.

Eios had a good number of places for them to go to, although they were in disguise most of the time due to Lotor having the wits about him to send out a bounty on their heads with images from the various times they had been caught by surveillance cameras. Their trip to the Space Mall hadn't helped all that much since most of the images came from there.

"I bet that security guard was so thrilled to be of use," Lance told Pidge sarcastically as he, Hunk and Pidge sat around a table drinking some warm drinks. The taste reminded Pidge of bitter hot chocolate, but at least they were getting something warm in their bellies, which was a good thing. Or at least Shiro would have pointed that out to them.

"No doubt he probably had shots of us up on the wall," she added as Hunk picked up a long looking bean sprout from the dish of fungus that the owner had left them.

"Wonder what this is," he was saying before popping it in his mouth and then promptly slurping down the drink to cool off his tongue. "Hot, hot, hot…" he waved his hand over his lolling tongue, "What was that?"

Pidge looked down on the list next to the bowl, "A Formizian root sprout. It says here that it's supposed to be really hot and spicy." She looked up at Hunk fixing her glasses. "My guess, it's like chili peppers or ghost peppers."

"So good, but so spicy," Hunk said as the waiter brought over some ice that looked like frozen yogurt. Hunk quickly popped it in his mouth and all at once felt a soothing sensation run over his tongue and down his throat. "Ah….better," he waved at the waiter. "Thanks for the help."

The waiter waved back as Lance smirked at Pidge, "Well, well, look at you. Getting better with your language lessons I see."

Pidge flushed slightly at the compliment, more embarrassed than anything else, "Well yeah. I mean someone should know what the heck most of the writing says. We can't always rely on Keith to be there to read it, or Allura."

"Yeah, I know," Lance sat back and poked at the other fungus in the bowl, partly afraid too much on them. "Really wish I could get some good old nachos or fries. Maybe some churros, or a roscas," he paused when he saw Pidge looking confused and quickly motioned with his hands. "It's like a doughnut, usually it's kinda thin and baked, with chocolate on top. There was a shop that sold it not far from my house, I used to get them there on my way home from school. They're really good, you should try them some time…" a distant look came into his eyes. "If we ever get home."

"When we get home," Hunk quickly corrected him and Pidge nodded.

"Yeah, when we get home. I'll try some with you, okay Lance?"

"Oh, me too, me too!" Hunk said, "I've always wanted to try Cuban food."

Lance laughed, making both of his friends smile. It had been a while since he'd let out a good chuckle, and it was nice to hear it. That changed when two men walked into the shop, dressed in cloaks and the trio went quiet. While they didn't look like druids, there was an aura around them that made Pidge feel like they were of some importance to some group that they had not encountered before.

The taller one was speaking softly to the shorter one, clearly in a heated discussion, and Lance kept leaning over to try to hear what they were saying. He frowned and shook his head, "It's all a jumble to me. I can't understand a word of it."

This gave Pidge a moment to consider an option she hadn't before, "Maybe I can," she kept her voice low as the other two leaned in some, and she pulled out a small device. It looked a bit like the cube that Coran had from the Olkari, but it clearly was more octagonal in nature and had a speaker and mic on it.

"Ah, what's a speaker going to do Pidge," Lance asked as she turned it on.

"It's not a speaker, well it was, but then I modified it. It's actually a language translator."

Hunk looked impressed, "You mean like those things that the Garrison leaders were talking about installing on some of the suits so people could talk to each other over the coms and it translates it?"

Pidge nodded, "One in the same, only this one is going to try to translate what they're saying."

"But, how's that going to work if you don't know the language? Doesn't it have to be programed in?" Lance said pointedly and Pidge gave a smirk.

"Already figured that out. I down loaded all the known language banks that the Castle had and exported the most common into the cube. If there's a slim chance that it can hear the language they're speaking then it can translate it back to me." She put in an ear piece as Lance took it from her hand to examine it.

"Yeah, but how are you going to get it over there to them. You can't just walk over and say drop it under the table."

"No, I can't, but you can." She smiled and Hunk covered a laugh as Lance just shot her a look and added.

"Touché."

A moment later he was pretending to go look for the washroom and bumped into the table causing the two men to look up and Lance to excuse himself while dropping the strange translator onto the floor. It rolled under the table then, carefully climbed up the leg it was near and attached to the underside of the table as Lance thanked the men for giving him directions and walked away, giving a thumbs up to Pidge who quickly turned it on with the small device in her hand.

After a moment or so of gibberish coming into her ear piece she started to hear words that she could understand.

"Traitor." "Son of," "Needs to be dealt with…" "Won't like it…" "Do we have a choice?" "Keeping him…" "Safe." "Other slaves." "Rebels keep attacking." "Taking them from us." "Human." "Wearing armor."

Then there was more gibberish, and finally, "Mezora."

Pidge's eyes went wide. The Rebels they were talking about, she had to wonder if they were the same ones as the group that took her brother. If they were then…then she could find her brother and maybe with his help they could find Shiro. It was an insane option but there wasn't much of a choice. This was news and she knew she was going to have to get it to Allura and Coran as quickly as possible.

Hunk noticed her reaction as Lance was coming back over, he'd waited several minutes before rejoining them. "Hey, Pidge, what are they saying?"

Pidge looked up at her compatriots and shook her head then motioned in a 'let's go' way with her eyes. Lance and Hunk exchanged quick glances then nodded, finishing their drinks, as if everything was normal, and got up to go. The trio walked out, keeping their movement as casual as possible. None of them would have noticed that one of the men in the cloaks was feeling around under the table and had pulled out the translation device.

The one that had it in hand held it up to his fellow diner and said softly, "We should alert Prince Lotor of this."

"The Paladins are on the move."

At that moment the trio had managed to find Keith who was with Kolivan. The two had been trading some items and the older male had been talking to Keith about something private. Pidge had caught a look of curiousity in the younger man's eyes, but that went away and he smiled when he saw them coming towards him. Hunk handed him a hot drink, which he graciously took.

"Thanks, what's with the faces?"

"We need to get moving," Lance explained quickly and patted Pidge on the shoulder. "Pidge heard something important."

Keith and Kolivan looked at her surprised as Hunk added, "Yeah these two weird cloaked guys came into the place where we were eating. Then they started to talk weird, and Pidge got the idea to use this neat device she has to translate their language, and found out what they were saying."

"Good work Pidge," Keith smiled and Pidge gave a nod, flushed from running over to find him. "What did they say?"

"I'm not sure, but it sounded like they were talking about the Rebels attacking a planet with a Human wearing armor." She explained as she caught her wind and fixed her glasses glancing back with Lance who was keeping an eye out for the cloaked figures. "I'm not sure, but they could have been talking about either Shiro, or…Matt."

Keith met her gaze, he knew this was important, not only to him in finding Shiro but her for finding her brother. He'd seen how she'd looked when alone in thought and memories had come up about it. Shiro had, in their down time, mentioned it to him more than once in passing. He'd been just as determined to find Matt and Sam Holt as he had been to defeat Zarkon. It was something that Keith was going to do as well. If there was any way to find them, then he would. They were Pidge's family, and he wasn't about to turn his back on them.

"Alright then let's go, did they say where they were at?"

"Mezora."

Keith looked over at Kolivan, "Think we have enough for the repairs."

"I believe so, yes," said the leader of the Blade, though he looked confused at Pidge. "Who is this Matt?"

"He's…He's my brother. He was captured with Shiro and my dad when they were doing research for earth. I've been trying to find them ever since, and now…" now she had a lead, a strong one. Kolivan seemed to understand the look in her brown eyes as he gave a slight smile.

"You are a brave one, Pidge Gunderson," the older Galra hefted a box and gave a look to Keith, "I shall go first, you four follow in pairs."

"I'll go with Pidge," Keith offered and Lance and Hunk just shrugged it off. The two seemed to wander off slightly then head towards the ship in another direction, and Keith quickly motioned Pidge to follow him. The two hurried along the icy streets and the many stalls that made up the small quiet space port town. Pilots and locals mingled at various locations as they moved quickly around in the cold air, clearly not as affected as those that were not native to the planet.

For a while they walked in silence until Keith said softly, "We'll get them back."

She glanced up at him and noticed that Keith looked more serious than ever and nodded, "All three of them."

He turned his head to face her as she gazed back at him with a determined expression on her face. Keith's eyes softened some, knowing that Pidge had his back helped a lot. She was his partner after all. He took a breath and nodded. "Yeah, all three."

With that they hurried down to the ship and found the others their waiting already. Coran waved to them as they raced over, and he smiled, "I heard you have some good news."

"Yeah, can you get the ship ready we're gonna need to leave fast. We might have a hit on finding Pidge's brother…" he paused and looked at Allura, "And possibly Shiro."

She raised her eyebrows and glanced at Pidge who nodded confirmation. A resolute look came over her face as Allura hurried inside giving orders to Slav and Coran to make the Ship ready to go. In no time at all the Castle of Lions was flying out in space, wormholing its way to Mezora.

"So what's this place like?" Hunk asked as they sat on the bridge and Allura thought a moment or two trying to figure it out.

"Well, it's a dusty dry place, and the soil is a rich red color." She recalled as she tried to picture the place in her mind. Coran quickly jumped in explaining things in more detail.

"Mezora used to be a pretty young planet ten thousand years ago. If I recall correctly it was mostly an outpost for a few political factions to meet, although no one really lived there outright." He rubbed his mustache as he thought. "There was a lot of talk of building some sort of city there once things had cooled off, but no one was sure who was going to be in charge of it since it was kind of on its own alone out there."

"Sounds a lot like mars," Keith commented as Coran pulled up the planet.

"And looks like it too," Hunk noted as he examined the whole thing. "Yeah there's a ton of volcanic activity, but it's cooled down at this point. See the river beds starting to be made."

Lance and Pidge came over to look as Keith glanced at Allura who was keeping her eye on Slav. The strange alien inventor seemed interested in some new item he had gotten off of Eios. Keith quietly walked over, and noticed where the Princess's eyes were moving.

"Any idea what his new toy is?"

"No," she shook her head and sighed, "And I honestly don't want to."

Keith gave a short nod, recalling how Slav had agitated Shiro, someone he thought had the patience of a saint. Allura was no Shiro, so Slav was able to get under her skin far faster than his. Keith watched her as her eyes moved around the room then at the planet.

"Something bothering you?"

"Well, yes, quite frankly it is." She explained as she looked over at Pidge and the others. "The whole conversation that they over heard. I'm not sure if I trust it completely. We've had one to many brushes with danger Shi…" she paused and blinked once quickly correcting herself, "Keith. And I'm worried this is a trap."

Keith, for his part, ignored the slip up. He knew she was still getting used to not having Shiro around to handle the Paladins. This was part of the role he was going to have to get used to, and while Pidge and Hunk made it easy, Lance, not so much. He smiled slightly at Allura, placing a hand on her forearm.

"I'm a bit worried too. We don't know what they were exactly talking about. But if there's a chance that either Matt or Shiro is down there…"

Allura gave a quick nod in agreement. "We need to take that risk."

"A calculated one," Keith said pointedly, "But yeah."

"Speaking of which, we're going to need to figure out who's going down with the landing party. We lost one of the pods, so we can't risk losing another, and we can't risk them seeing one of the lions." Allura was saying when the Castles navigation system warned that they were approaching their destination and she slowly pulled out of the wormhole farther back from the planet so that they couldn't be noticed.

The others looked up when they came out of hyperspace and Lance raised his eyebrow. "Huh? So we're stopping farther out then?"

"Yes, but only because we don't want to be spotted. We need to come up with a plan." Allura explained and Keith gave her the floor to speak. She cleared her throat, trying to sound as calm as possible. "We know that the planet has been attacked in the past by this rebel group, but we don't know when or where. We also know that there are slaves there, and the possibility of a royal person on the planet that being held hostage, and is seen as a traitor." She glanced over at Pidge, "Do I have that all right?"

"That's about what my device was able to translate." Pidge admitted and Allura seemed pleased.

"Do you still have it?"

"The device," Pidge looked nervous and tipped her head some. "I, well, I left it behind. We were in a rush to get out of there, and it would have been hard to retrieve. It can't record anything, just translate, so there's not much good they can do with it."

"Yeah but now they know someone was listening," Keith looked a little disturbed by this fact. "They could have gotten word to the Galra, or someone else."

"Hey, lay off, I'm the one that dropped it," Lance stuck up for her but Keith seemed to roll his eyes. Pidge knew this wasn't Keith being upset, just worried. He didn't want to lose anyone else, and she saw in his face that he was mulling over the possibility of leaving before things began.

Pidge looked down for a moment, "I know," she looked back at him then, "but even so we need to see what we can find out."

"I agree," Keith responded, and Lance blinked, a bit surprised.

"You do?"

"Sure, we can't know if they reported it to anyone, or even found it. And if they don't know what it is, or where it came from, it's not useless, but it's not a strong piece of evidence in favor of them knowing what we're up to." Keith shrugged lightly at this and Lance seemed relieved at this. For the past several weeks that they had been searching Keith had been jumpier, worried that they could get hit by an unknown attack. He had to wonder if talking to Kolivan on Eios had helped their new leader gain some confidence.

"Yeah, but even if they don't, we can't just rest on our butts floating out here and waiting to see if they make a move or not." He pointed out and Hunk added quickly.

"And if there are slaves down there, or prisoners, we need to get them out."

Keith closed his eyes and started to consider things, "We need to get down there without anyone noticing and see if we can get some intel on what's going on."

"You mean like monitoring them? Sort of like a recon mission?" Lance smiled and stood up to his full height. "Well if it's a spy that you need, I can certainly handle that job. I'll take my soda stirred not shaken."

"No," Keith said bluntly and Lance's face fell.

"Oh come on! You know that I'm fast and I've got reflexes like a cat."

"Yeah but you can be too loud," Hunk pointed out and Lance rolled his eyes.

"Thanks for the back up there partner."

"Don't mention it," Hunk teased back and poked Lance in the side causing him to jump a little from the tickle. Keith shook his head, covering a small smirk that came out, and considered the options.

"Well I'm out," Keith crossed his arms trying to reason things out. "Zarkon and the other's know my face and Shiro's the most."

"Good point," Hunk said and looked at Pidge, "So I guess the two of us will have to do the recon. Unless Coran or the Princess wanted to come along."

"Oh, I could go," offered Slav who appeared over Hunk's shoulder. "In one reality I'm a judo master." He karate chopped the air with a few hands, as if trying to prove it. The look on Hunk's face caused Lance, Pidge and Keith all to cover snorts.

"It might be better if you ah…stay here Slav. We'll need your help running the ship in case we need to deal with any fighters coming from the planet." Allura told him as she gave a tight smile, trying to stop herself from laughing.

Slav looked between the Paladins and shrugged his shoulders, "Well, alright, after all I had a twenty percent chance of dying if I went down there anyway."

"Awww, only twenty this time?" Lance asked sarcastically.

"Lance," cautioned Keith and Lance waved it off.

"What? I'm kidding. You know a joke? Or has your sense of humor left when Shiro did?"

"Guys, let's not start fighting again," Hunk cut in before things started to get ugly. He rubbed the back of his head. "So what if Pidge and I go down there and scope thing out and report back."

"Sounds like a good idea," Keith nodded and Lance sighed but seemed resigned to the fact that he was going to be stuck in the Castle rather than out in the field. Coran held up his hand suddenly and stopped the proceeding.

"Hold everything, this won't do."

"Why not?" Hunk asked and Coran pointed at the castles bridge board.

"We're not running on full capacity right now, and in case something goes wrong with the system then we'll need all hands on deck."

"He's right," Keith sighed and Lance went over to Pidge and put an arm around her.

"Well then I guess it's just you and me little buddy," he teased and she rolled her eyes.

"I think it might be better for just one of us to go."

"What? You don't think I can handle it?" Lance actually looked hurt for a moment as Pidge quickly countered. That wasn't what she had meant at all. Lance would have been a great asset but if Matt was down there then, she wanted to see for herself, and Lance had a habit of letting his ego get in the way of things from time to time. She was worried that whoever Matt was with they could get the wrong impression of them, and there could be trouble, and the last thing she wanted was for Matt to get hurt because of her.

"No, no, no. It's not that. We don't know what's down there," Pidge explained. "And if one of us goes then it could be easier to scout, and since I'm the smallest, then maybe they won't notice me as easily."

Lance rubbed his chin, "Like what happened in the Castle when we were all caught. I get it…okay…but…are you sure you're going to be okay down there on your own?"

"I should be fine. If the lay out is the same then there should be no issue for me landing nearby and sneaking in." Pidge explained to them and pointed out a path from a location near some flats. "See, right there, there's a flat that's above the city. If I land there, and sneak down, I can slip in from the back, probably over the wall there, and end up right in the back alleys of the city."

"And from there you can look for your brother or Shiro." Hunk nodded his head in agreement.

"Exactly, I'm the least conspicuous of the group, so I should be the one to go down."

Keith scowled slightly, "I'm not a big fan of this plan, Pidge."

"Why not?" she asked seriously. "You don't think I'm up for it?"

"No it's not that. But it has been a long time since the Castle's updated it's maps and star systems. And the last time we went out, Hunk and I ran into issues about the planet we ended up near." Keith's mind wandered to the strange Galra with Zarkon's emblem on his sleeve. Since then he hadn't seen hide nor hair of the Galra in that suit, and no other Galra fighters had that marking on them. It had bothered him more then he wanted to admit, and he was regretting not telling Shiro about the mark back when he had a chance. What bothered him more though was that the Galra that he'd met was still out there, and there was a chance that Pidge could run into him. He didn't know if the guy was friend or foe, and that annoyed him.

"Oh yeah," Hunk's voice brought Keith back to the group. He was talking to Pidge as he tried to describe what they had seen. "When we got to the Weblum the planets were all destroyed like something big had come and torn them apart. But that wasn't on the map, the readings were all off."

Pidge sighed, "Okay, I promise, I'll be careful. A quick scout, I won't go into the city till I contact you and then I'll wait for you guys to come down and meet me. Fair enough."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Keith agreed, a bit reluctantly. "Any one against it."

"I still don't like you doing this alone," Lance admitted, "But, given the situation, you should be okay. Just make sure you'll let us know if anything comes up alright? And if there are some good looking ladies, let me know about that too."

Pidge again rolled her eyes, "Will do."

"Don't worry Pidge, you got this," Hunk cheered her on with a solid pat on the back.

"And I know you have it up here helping Coran with the engines." She gave him a high five and the two grinned.

It didn't take long for Pidge to get into a pod and head down towards Mezora. As before the Castle was hiding behind the second moon and she could see the whole world below her. She angled the pod, saying her comments to Lance and letting him know how close she was getting. All the while the systems were acting up as if some form of transmission was messing with them. This wasn't good, but she needed to push on. If Matt was down there she needed to find him, needed to see him and hope that he could help them find Shiro and their dad.

It wasn't till she was pulling through the atmosphere that things really started to get weird. The whole planet was covered in plants and trees. She could see a huge canopy from where she was and felt herself being pulled closer and closer towards the surface. That's when the communications completely cut off.

"Castle of Lions, this is Pidge, do you copy? Allura, this is Pidge, do you copy? Lance…answer me?! Anyone? Keith, Hunk! Someone!" she was starting to get slightly scared. If there was trouble they couldn't hear her, and vice versa. This was bad, Pidge realized, and decided then and there to pull out. However, that was not what was going to happen.

Just as she had started to maneuver the ship to get out of the sky, something hit on her port side and knocked the pod sideways. Pidge let out a yelp as she lost control of the steering and another blast from the ground hit the ship sending it in another direction.

"Whoa! Come on! Don't do this!" she screamed and dove for the ground figuring she could avoid being hit more. Diving into the tree top Pidge braced for impact and felt herself thrown about when the pod crashed through the top layer. Things became disorienting and she blacked out.

Moments later she opened her eyes to find herself upside down, the ship smoking, but still in one piece. Pidge quickly unbuckled herself and tried the coms.

"Pidge to Castle, Pidge to Castle, do you copy?" there was static and then silence. She sighed and looked around, nothing but lush trees and forest for miles.

"Great…now what do I do?" she muttered as she began to search to find a way to get to the city.

Elsewhere, watching on a screen one Prince Lotor eyed the falling ship and crossed his arms.

"Well, well, isn't this interesting? So it looks like those two merchants were right when they said someone was listening to them. I wonder, just what prize have we caught?" He smirked and his yellow eyes brightened with anticipation of his catch.


	2. Chapter 2: Lotor's Plot

AN: Copyright for Voltron, Toei Animation, WEP, Dreamworks animation and Studio Mir.

Lotor

The two merchants had hailed the city several vargas ago and insisted upon speaking with Mogor, Lotor's advisor, who was in charge of the city on Mezora, practically foaming at the mouth with excitement and hoping to get in the Prince's good graces. After all, with his father incapacitated, and the likelihood of him never making a full recovery, rumors abound that the young Prince would soon become Emperor. So it was wise, at least to the two merchants, to get in his good graces while there was still time.

Mogor knew the Prince hated that fact. He had been with the young noble since he was a child, barley able to hold a sword, and had seen him grow into the cunning dispassionate man that he was now. Lotor had dealt with fools all his life. Those that would smile to his face, and name call him behind his back. He was used to it, and had learned long ago not to care. Or at least hide that care behind ambivalence. The less people had reason to be around him the better he felt. He trusted no one, save Mogor, and that was how it had been for years. No one quiet knew the Prince's real personality. Sometimes he could come off as charming and witty, other times quiet and reserved, still others scheming and ruthless. But above all else Lotor was a man who didn't like chances to slip from his grasp that was the only reason Mogor had allowed the call to come through.

"State your business," the tall and brutish Galra officer had stated. His gray and black uniform standing out among the men he over saw. Standing at attention, Mogor stared at the screen, watching the two merchants as they seemed to question who was going to talk first. The more they seemed to hem and haw, the more aggravated he got and turned to look at his communication officer.

"Close the link, I have no time for this idiocy. There are important calls that could come through and I would like to keep the channels open."

The officer nodded and was about to cut off the transmission when the taller of the two cloaked figures shouted, "Wait! We have news."

"So you said," Mogor stated, his face showing no indication of his annoyance, nor did his tone shift in the slightest to show any sign indicating he was displeased. "What is it that you have to say? Either speak now, or I will have this call terminated. And you should make it quick, I'm not a patient man."

"Ah, yes, so we've heard," said the shorter one of the two. He looked at his partner who shrugged and the shorter one continued. "We'd like to let Prince Lotor know that we've found three of the Voltron pilots."

Mogor smirked some, unable to hide the chuckle that came upon his lips. His yellow eyes lit up with amusement. "Have you now? And what makes you think you have found them."

"Well we were at a dinner on Eios, when we saw these three young creatures across from us, and we were discussing issues about Mezora when one of them got up to use the bathroom and…"

Mogor had heard enough. This was useless chatter and waved his hand to his officer readying him to cut the call short when the tall one quickly interjected.

"Wait! Don't cut us off yet! We really did see them. One had a dark tan face with a really stupid grin. The other had dark black hair with an orange wrap around the head and quiet chunky…"

"Yes quiet," said the shorter one, "And the last had big round glasses and big brown eyes!"

"That could describe any humanoid being in the galaxy," Mogor pointed out rather board with the discussion. He turned his head to his subordinate, "Cut the link…"

"Wait!" screamed the short one and pulled out the device. "Here! They were listening to us with this!"

Mogor stared at the device and raised his eyebrow, "That?" he questioned, "That just looks like a toy of some sort."

"It's not, I assure you," insisted the tall one and the short one vigorously nodded his head sending the hood violently flapping, making the communication officer cover his mouth so they didn't hear him laugh. "This device let them hear what we were saying in our own language. We think they were spying on us. The one with the orange wrap was watching us, even though he thought we did not see him."

The short one shouted as he pushed up his hood some, "Yes, yes, and they left quickly after the one with the glasses seemed surprised by what we were saying. Something spooked him."

"And I think they had a ship docked at one of the ports." The tall one was now waving his hands around as if trying to draw out a map in the air. "Please, let us speak to Prince Lotor. We're sure that they heard us and know of Mezora now."

Morgor sniffed, this was news, but how good it was he wasn't sure and he wasn't about to let these oafs speak with the Prince. He closed his eyes and cleared his throat. "The Empire thanks you for your excellent work, and is pleased that you did your job as dutiful citizens. We will allow you to keep that object and will let the Prince know of you findings."

"Wait…" started the short one, hopping for some form of payment, but Mogor signaled to his communication officer, who terminated the call, causing the screen to go blank again. Mogor shook his head and muttered under his breath.

"A likely story…"

"Though one I'm interested in," a smooth and calm voice came from the door way and Mogor turned to face an elegant looking young noble. The young man's eyes were a strange set up. Yellow like most other Galra, but they had irises and pupils more in line with his possible other heritage. Blue markings cut by his cheeks and his white hair was slightly pulled back to give him a more mature look. Some locks had come lose and hung lightly like bangs, which he brushed from his eyes as he came into the room.

At once the other officers stood and bowed to the young man along with Mogor. Unimpressed the young noble snorted at the display, pondering if his father were still awake, or if Mogor wasn't in the room, would any of them bow to him in such a manner.

"Prince Lotor!" Mogor said and looked down, "I did not mean to disrespect you, your highness."

Lotor let out a deep sigh and crossed his arms as Mogor glanced up. He was in his custom uniform, with orange and blue tints mixed with the black and light gray of the traditional Galra officer. Lotor was the only one allowed to wear such an outfit, something no other member of the Empire's army could do, and some thought it was garish and out of place, but the Prince had always been that way. Choosing to embrace some of the distain of others and flaunt that as a means of showing control over things that he could. Uniform choice was one of them, and he wore it with pride. It suited him, more so, it make him look imperial when need be. At that moment a cape was draped over his back and it was clear he'd put it on recently as the rest of his uniform showed hints of damage from laser fire. Mogor assumed then that the young prince had gone into the training chamber for practice.

"No, I'm sure you did not," Lotor said with a distant look on his face and motion Mogor to rise, which he did as did his men. They went quickly back to work as Lotor waited for an explanation of what was going on. Mogor stood at attention as he spoke.

"Sire, there was a call from the planet Eios, two unknown merchant hailed with some information regarding a bounty."

"And what does that have to do with us? We have no bounty here, well none that is worth much." He muttered thinking of the young Prince that was in the holding cells on the lower floors of the command center.

"The bounty information was about the Voltron Paladins, my lord," Mogor explained and Lotor, who had been watching some monitors showing off the city and some of the surrounding area (mostly keeping an eye on some of the larger creatures to be sure that they weren't about to break another wall –since one had just been repaired the other quintent), turned his attention immediately to his advisor and stared with some disbelief.

"Are you certain of this? What did they say?"

"Not much, my lord," Mogor explained and relaxed just a little as Lotor fully faced him. The two men were vastly different in height and looks. Lotor with his elegant Altean features and sharp ears, was like a perfect alien prince, and his shorter height stood out among his men as he came up to their chests. Mogor was far more beast like in face, with harsher angles and dark flushed hair. He had very strong chin with a pounced nose that seemed to be slightly crooked from not healing straight after it had been broken. There was an air about the two men that showed a great deal of power and intimidation. No one dared to cut into the conversation.

"However you think that what they did say had some merit?" Lotor inquire, intrigued. Mogor nodded slightly at this and Lotor tapped his chin with a nail. "And what was it that you thought was of use to us?"

Mogor motioned for him to look at the video that they had filmed of the exchange. It was common practice to record any calls that came in from unknown frequencies. He stopped the video and had the technician zoom in on the strange device in the shorter merchant's hand. "They claimed that they had seen members of Voltron and that they had listened into their conversation, then left the dinner that they were eating at on Eios."

Lotor stared at the device and waved at the officer, "Enlarge it."

The Galra officer did so without question and Lotor came up to the screen, and quickly pulled up a console, taking a full scan of the object and started to run various tests on the image. Eventually after a few moments the computer came up with a holographic version of the device. Lotor spun it around and looked at it from all angles and then glanced at Mogor. "Do we have any scans of devices from Olkari on hand?"

"I believe so Sire," the technician said, and looked through the files that he had on the various devices the Galra at the base had taken in over the years. "Ah, yes there are a few. Do you wish me to scan them and the item for similarities?"

"As quickly as you can." Lotor told him as the computer ran over the files, his eyes watching for the proof that he needed. If this was an items from Olkari then he had an idea who designed it, the Green Paladin.

Lotor had taken it upon himself to learn all that he could about the Paladins since he'd been brought back into the fold. He didn't want just words from those that would kiss up to him for a place in the ranks, and their intelligence was tentative at best. Seeing the Voltron crew in action was something that he felt that he needed. After all they were an intelligent group, and he'd seen firsthand how they'd used what they knew to gather scaultrite from inside the Weblum in a risky, but impressive, way. He'd owe them that much he knew, particularly the red one, Keith, for saving him from inside his ship.

He'd watched video after video of captured footage from different locations of fights with the Voltron members, both on the ground from destroyed drones and in space as they'd wrecked ships. Then there were the videos of them in locations where they were in bases and on their own being relaxed. He'd found it all to be very informative, although it only gave him some speculation on how their relationships worked as well as their personalities interacted.

From what he could tell Keith was very serious but also someone who could lead and crack a joke around those that he trusted. He also had issues with himself and longed for answers to his past. Lance was one that was unsure of his role in the team, but when push came to shove he was very efficient and could not only follow orders but also come up with things on the fly. Hunk was one that seemed to be off in lala land quite a bit, but it was damn clear to him that Hunk could be a challenge when he threw himself fully into something as well as being extra sensitive to others and their needs. Something Lotor admired in a fighter. Then there was Shiro, the clear leader of the team and one that seemed to have a strange mix of attitudes. At points he seemed clear and in control, but there were moments Lotor caught something of fear or doubt in his face. He was scared of something, and the others didn't see it. Lotor had found that interesting and felt that if he met Shiro he'd hone in on that factor. Whatever it was, it was something he could use against him.

The last one though was interesting. Pidge was the Green Paladin, and someone who seemed to be heavily involved in his work, however he was nothing more than what appeared to be a child. From the reports after the near takeover of the Castle of Lions, it seemed that Pidge was far more capable a fighter then Commander Sendak had assumed. He'd underestimated the Green Paladin and had allowed for his plans to be destroyed by this Pidge. The more he'd watched of the Paladin the more Lotor was interested in the way his mind ticked. Pidge had the air of someone who could go from zero to one hundred in less than five ticks, and it was clear that he knew what he was doing when it came to hacking and getting into the Galra systems. This fact had bothered him a lot, if a child could get at the systems, was it any wonder that his father's great ship had fallen to the warriors of Voltron.

Pidge was an oddity that he wanted to explore more. Not a full on fighter as the others were, he was more built for stealth, and the fact that he was searching for his brother had been something that Lotor found useful. If he could get this other boy, he could use that to get at the Green Paladin, which could effectively weaken the team.

But at the moment that was not what he was thinking about as the numbers and images flashed in quick succession before him. Lotor's mind was on the way that Pidge had shown a great deal of interest in technology and could reverse engineer things. This bothered him as it meant that he could effectively rebuild something that they had made and this could eventually be used against them. He needed to find a way to deal with that issue first, as he was sure the others would have a harder time dealing with them if he could take out the tech guy in their little group. He was sure that the device before their eyes was something that Pidge had built based on Olkari engineering, the question was what was it?

A beeping noise from the computer signaled that all tests were completed and Mogor's voice called him back from his thoughts. "Sire, I believe we know what the device is."

"Well then," Lotor examined the list of information that lay before him, and carefully combed through it. His fingers danced over the pink screen and he made a faced as he fell into deep thoughts. "So it seems it's a translator, how clever, and one that learns as well…interesting. But uttlerly useless unless the words match something that was already in there, or similar to another language."

"So it appears, Prince Lotor," Mogor agreed and Lotor waved the device screen away, and stepped away from the computer. He muttered to himself as he walked back and forth, as if trying to decode some puzzle that had been placed before him as a test.

"So they listened in and heard a conversation, what were they talking of?" he asked Mogor, who cleared his throat. "Well?"

"They said they were discussing matters on Mezora."

Lotor's brows narrowed and a dark anger entered his eyes, "What…matters…precisely?"

"They did not say. Only that they were talking about the planet…" Mogor said and Lotor scowled.

"I want them found, find out what they know, and if need be…make it clear that if they talk anymore of this planet they will be silenced."

Mogor bowed, "As you command, my Prince."

Lotor closed his eyes and headed for the door, "I'll be in contact. I need to figure out what to do next. If they know of the planet then they are sure to come…but what to do with it."

Leaving the area he ignored the greetings from his subordinates and went to his quarters. Stripping from his clothing he quickly ducked into a shower to clean and think. Closing his eyes he let the water from Mezora's springs run over his sore body. There were scars from where he'd been sliced in combat when he was a child. Training his father's generals had insisted upon, training he'd learned to despise as his height had been a problem and made him an easy target for the far taller and stronger of the new recruits. However his height had an advantage in how he could move, and he was far mobile then the others around him, and his hearing was better than the other Galran officers in his academy. Yet that had not stopped them from treating him as useless, a waste of space.

He clenched his fist, he'd shown them though. The moment he'd come up with his gun he'd proven to be a far greater shot and his studies of strategy and hand to hand combat had aided him to get him out of scrapes a traditional officer would have lost in. He could recall the face of Keith when he'd managed to get over his head. It made him smirk to know that he could still surprise others. He preferred to work alone, but in that case, it had been a bad move. Then again, he was never one to think of plans in the long term, especially when it came to dealing with being ignored or rebuked. So he'd foolishly gone to get the scaultrite on his own. His plans to build a telladove were slowly taking fruition, but it had been hard going, and others had not wanted to help. Even now he felt alone, an outcast among his own people. The only ones that he actually trusted were Mogor and Kossak. Mogor had been his advisor since he was young and Kossak had been a fellow recruit in the academy and had since become the head of his elite squadron. Still, the trust only went so far, and neither were of the brilliant mind Lotor believed himself to be when it came to understanding the science of the universe.

Cleaned, and relaxed, he donned a casual uniform, looser pants and a top that was built more in a traditional Altean garb. He knew that some of the base would be displeased seeing him in such wear, and he didn't care. He would wear what he wanted and damn them to hell if they didn't like it. Taking a seat in his quarters he pulled up the device again and looked it over. It was well crafted, not at all what he figured someone of Pidge's age could craft. It made him wonder what the child's IQ really was.

As he studied it a thought crossed his mind. They would be coming to Mezora, that was a given. There was no way that Voltron would not try to come and see if what the merchants had said was true. If that was the case, then he knew that they wouldn't just rush in, given that Allura was no fool, and Corran was good at planning. They would have to have the element of surprise that was a must for the base.

Lotor steepled his fingers and looked out at the device. "They're going to come, they heard something to interest them, and they wouldn't have wanted to listen in unless there was a reason." He was muttering again to himself, ignoring the drink on the side of the table and the food that had been brought in. He rubbed his chin for a moment and closed his eyes again, focusing on what he'd seen in the videos, trying to think like the Voltron members.

"They're going to send someone down…." He realized this quickly, but the question was who? Did it really matter? Not so much as long as he could get to them first. If he could capture the Paladin then he could use that against the others and possibly take the ship without firing a shot. A smile came over his lips as he got up and hurried out of the quarters, donning his cape again and heading to the command center's main operations chamber. Again he ignored the greetings, and marched in without a second thought to protocol. Mogor was surprised to see him come back so soon and bowed.

"My Prince is there something wrong?"

"No, everything is right!" He grinned and quickly pulled up the console again, pulling Mogor over and showing him his plan. "We can trap a lion, Mogor."

"How exactly, sire?" questioned the larger man as he stood beside his Prince. Moogor had seen Lotor like this before. When the boy had ideas he would stop at nothing till he had what he wanted. There were times his recklessness had caused more trouble than what the plan was worth, but Lotor always was thinking of plans that had merit, so he stood there and listened. If it was something that wasn't feasible, he would just delay the orders and come up with an excuse later, at the moment though he let Lotor peel off his plan.

"If the Lions are coming they wouldn't be dumb enough to just charge in and land, correct? Based on their patterns we can at least say they are smart enough to scout." Lotor moved an image of the Castle of Lion's ship into view of Mezora. Mogor nodded in agreement, as Lotor created another smaller ship. "We know that they wouldn't risk a lion coming for us, so what's the next best bet?"

"A scouting ship?" offered up Mogor and stared at the board before him. "Yes, I do see where you're going with this. But how to deflect it?"

"We don't." Lotor said and smirked. "If the Castle is truly as old as Sendek had estimated, this means that the maps of the systems are no longer up to date. Which means they have no idea of the condition of Mezora as of right now."

Mogor stared at the screen intrigued as the prince went on, moving the ship along a route. "They're going to want to hide from us, so let's not concern ourselves with that right now. Just focus on the pod that would be coming. A craft of that size travels at a slower speed then the lions. They won't be traveling at the fastest speed as a means to stealth in, since they don't know what's down here. So if they're going at a slower speed, they should show up around here." He pointed to a location due west of the city. "More than likely they'll try to go for the city to get some information from the locals."

"And we catch them there?" questioned the advisor as Lotor shook his head. "Then where my lord? Wouldn't it be easier to capture the paladin in the city?"

"No, we don't want them getting into the city, it would cause issues," he frowned slightly looking over the lay of the land. If the Voltron Paladins got into the city they could learn about the _guest_ that they had in the cells and Lotor was planning on using him to get a great deal of resources for work on one of his projects.

He moved around some images. "We can get them to crash over here if possible." He pointed towards an area with trees, far enough from the city to keep the paladin away from it's secrets, but close enough so that his plans could come to fruition. "Then we can capture them while they're not sure what's going on."

"And how do we get them to crash?" Mogor asked honestly and Lotor again pulled up some numbers and worked out a frequency as he applied a mathematical equation. Smiling he showed his advisor.

"Like this, this is a frequency that could disrupt a pod that was too close to the planet's atmosphere. Once that happens, while the pilot is trying to figure out what's going on. We swoop in and strike, causing them to crash."

"And then what, my lord." Mogor saw potential in this idea and Lotor's knowing smirk came back.

"Then…you leave everything else up to me."

It was barely two Quintents had passed before reports of a pod had been brought up. Lotor had been in the command center's chamber for vargas on end waiting. He watched every ship that passed by their area of space, searching for a telltale sign of the Castle of Lion's pod ship that he was sure was going to come. And it did, during daylight of all times, cautiously entering their space.

"Sire, the scrambling device is working," the communications officer told him and Lotor nodded watching with interest as the ship entered the atmosphere and began to have malfunctions. They'd picked some comments from the pod, but the scrambling device made it hard to hear who was inside. He had been sure that the Princess would have sent the Red or Blue Paladin since the Black one seemed to have been missing, or so the reports filtering into him had noted.

As the ship fell Lotor watched with excitement.

"Well, well, isn't this interesting? So it looks like those two merchants were right when they said someone was listening to them. I wonder, just what prize have we caught?" He smirked and his yellow eyes brightened with anticipation of his catch.

With a resounding crash the pod had vanished into the trees and Lotor snorted, his calculations had been right, but he'd forgotten to add in error by the pilot trying to right the ship and the trees. This was going to make things a bit harder for him. Getting up from the chair he'd been sitting in Lotor looked to Mogor and waved at him.

"The rest I leave to you Commander Mogor. Make sure you don't forget what we discussed."

Mogor nodded and bowed his head, "As you command, Prince Lotor."

Quickly he exited the main room and headed to his quarters. He'd instructed one of his servants to get him the garb of a prisoner, which was laying on his bed ready for use. Lotor scowled as he picked it up.

"Not dirty enough," he grabbed hold of the top and pants then pulled them on. Without hesitation he took the drink and food he had in his room, and splattered it all over his clothing, staining it, then wetting the whole thing in his shower. He was soaked but that was only going to make it easier to gather dirt.

Grabbing a tie he pulled his hair back and went out of his room, and ignored the strange looks his officers gave him as he headed down to the holding cells in the lower floors. Here light was dim and designed to make the prisoners feel lost and abandoned. It was chilly and smelled of dry rot, but the place was oddly sanitary. Something he had made sure of. Sick prisoners were useless to him.

Marching at a quick pace past several guards, who were about to ask him questions, he moved over to a cell farther back. Inside a young man of about twenty sat, looking rather forlorn and scared. Lotor opened the cell with a quick hand press and the young man got up to his knees.

"Oh thank the gods, you're here to let me go? Has my father paid my ransom yet?"

Lotor snorted and looked down at the man before him. He was younger then him, by Galran standards, and this young man certainly pulled off being a stuffy prince to a T. He had the soft face, the handsome eyes of a charmer, the well placed smile and the hands of one that had never worked a day in his life. This was vastly different to Lotor himself, whose hands had calluses from the gun he wielded, and the look to his eyes of someone who had known hardship. The only thing they shared was the white hair.

"Not yet, we haven't even sent that out. But…Prince Bokar, I believe you can help me out." Lotor told him and knelt down to stare at the prince's face. He focused for several moments, examining as much as he could and the young prince seemed to become more and more unnerved the longer Lotor stared.

"What…what are you doing?" Bokar asked nervously after several dobashes went by and Lotor said nothing. Then the prince gasped as Lotor closed his eyes and seemed to transform before him. His form shrunk ever so little to match Prince Bokar's and his skin went from a lighter purple color to a pale skin much closer to that of the man before him. Concentrating hard he willed the markings on his face to vanish, leaving not even the slightest trace. When he opened his eyes they shifted around until they were a light brown color. He pulled at his bangs to match Bokar's hair style then smiled in a smugly satisfied way at the Prince that was sitting transfixed before him.

"Well that should do." Lotor stood to leave and Bokar dove to grab at his legs. Lotor moved faster and kicked him in the chin, sending him flying back and crashing against a chair in the cell. Bokar winced and shouted at him as he locked him back in.

"What are you doing? Do you really believe you'll be able to take my place?"

Lotor snorted and looked down at Bokar with an uncaring stare in his now brown eyes. "Hardly. You're useful for a trap I have set for Voltron, and that is all. I would never think to take on your unworthy role. You aren't even qualified to have the title of prince."

With that Lotor turned and stalked out of the prison and went up to the main floor. He waited and watched the guards. If his trap was to succeed then he needed to be sure that the guards believed what they saw. He checked the cameras, and then threw a loose screw he'd picked up along the way, at one, damaging it, knowing full well it would get the guards attention.

And it did just that. At the prisons security center the guards saw what looked to be Prince Bokar escaping from his holding area. Lotor raced along the corridors, ducking and hiding between doors and columns to give the appearance of trying to sneak out. He moved quickly to the vehicle dock and stole what was pretty much a speeder bike from the hanger. The alarms were going off as he took off, allowing the guards to see him, knowing that they would be in alert.

 _If Mogor keeps up his part of the plan, I should be able to get out and into the forest with them following._ Lotor thought as he raced around the city streets, dodging fire and pedestrians. A troop of drones were following him, running at full speed, a few on bikes. He snorted, if he didn't want them to follow him, he would have lost them long ago. Turning several corners, to make sure they were coming, he went for the gate.

The main city of Asora that they were in had a high wall around the body set up for siege war fare which happened six thousand years before. The main gate was a huge thing that had two halves, the top part locked into the bottom through a series of lasers that interwove when they met up. Lotor had told Mogor to slow down the interlocking sequence so he could get out of the city before the guards to keep things looking legit.

"Mogor, don't fail me now," he muttered as he raced at top speed for the gate that seemed to be lowering. He gritted his teeth as he saw the gate going down faster and slid under to avoid the lasers that were starting to lock the two halves together. Lotor watched as the gate closed, and counted several ticks before taking off when he saw the guards pouring out of the reopened gate.

The cut at the gate was a bit close, it bothered him, and Lotor knew when he got back he would talk to Mogor about why he'd not given him room to breathe. Still he had to give the Commander credit. He was good at his job and kept true to his word. Lotor drove the speeder through the rough western terrain of the open meadows around the city limits, and towards the forests.

"Now where are you?" he pulled up a gps to map the location of the downed ship even as a hail of fire blasts were nipping at his heels. One singed his hair and he winced as he felt his flesh heat up. _Well I wanted this realistic didn't I?_

He wished he had a weapon on hand, but the robots were catching up fast, so if they did shoot him too early he wouldn't have the proper item to deflect their assault. However as it was he was in the forest around the trees and led them on a jolly chase through the trunks and up several fallen trees to higher ground.

As he buzzed around Lotor would glance now and again at the map and how far he was to the pod. Twisting past a number of dead trunks he made sure that the robots crashed into them as he weaved about, making as much noise as he could the closer he got to the site of the crashed ship. He was hoping that the Paladin would hear it and come see what the noise was.

"That's it follow me," he grinned to himself. At that moment he felt exhilarated by the whole pursuit and partly hoped that it wouldn't end. His revelry was cut short when his speeder was hit and the whole thing took a nose dive into the ground, skidding deeply into the mud and throwing him hard into the air and he crashed into some bushes, feeling stinging pain.

Lotor could taste blood by his mouth and tried to get up. Suddenly several blasters came up to his face. He stared surprised at this, and held up his hands, "Hold it…don't shoot. I'm your Prince."

The drones looked at one another for a second, and he used the moment to jump up, and sweep kick two off their feet, forcing them to fall into their fellow guards. Lotor smashed his foot into one of their chest and leapt for a ledge that was just above them. He gained the ground as he pulled himself up, but the robots weren't done and they tracked him now on foot.

He counted in his head, _five hundred feet…_ he moved through the underbrush, pushing aside smaller trees and their limbs as he raced for the pod.

 _Three hundred feet…_ he could make out the break in the trees where the pod had landed.

Another few feet, _One hundred feet…._ he was nearly there, and so were the guards. They were firing again and he used his agility to avoid being hit, but again he wished he had a blaster in hand. He missed his side arm, and throwing the robots around would not gain him what he needed. He was supposed to be a weak prince, not someone trained to fight. If the pilot was the Red or Yellow Paladin and saw him firing they would know something was up, and that would ruin his plan.

 _Fifty feet…_ he could hear a voice calling out, it was distant but he was sure it was the Paladin, but he couldn't quiet tell which it was.

 _Twenty…Ten…five…_ He started to yell out for help. "Help! Oh is someone there! Please help me!"

His screams were loud, loud and scared. He needed them to be believiable and allowed one of the robots to hit him in the back of the leg, sending a sensation through his body that caused him to howl in pain.

Lotor doubled over, stumbling and falling, cluching his wounded leg as the robots surrounded him. He tried to calm his breathing but it was difficult and he could see a burnt mark appearing on his skin, turning it purple and he focused to cover the color. It hurt like hell, and he didn't know if he could sustain the illusion. The guards drew closer and he could make out their hard metal clinks. For anyone else this would be terrifying, but he knew that he could take them. Right then though he had to at least give the Paladin time to find him, so he kept calling out for help.

"Please, if anyone is there! I need help! Please, they'll kill me!"

The pain was starting to get to him, and he gritted his teeth as the drones started to hit him. He could feel their punches and was counting the number of hits, as that would be the number of robots he would destroy in training when this was all over. He was about to drop the farce as the pain from the hits was becoming too much for him to keep the illusion up, when he heard a shout from above.

"Hey leave him alone!" as a blur of a green lighting seemed to take a few of the guards out. In a moment there was a frenzy of black, green and white blurring, and whirling around him. The robots seemed to scatter and rush off, to regroup. A gloved hand touched his shoulder and Lotor looked up into a pair of soft brown eyes that was looking down at him with a worried look.

"Are you okay? Uh…Hello?" the voice was that of the Green paladin, but Lotor had to do a double take, there was no way this could be. He slowly sat up and took Pidge's outstretched hand and looked at it, then let his eyes rove over the form before him. He blinked, he'd not calculated this at all in his wild plan.

The one to save him, the one to come to the planet was the Green Paladin, and to his disbelief, he'd been wrong about the gender. This was no male paladin, but a female.

"Ah, yes, thank you miss…" he started to say, when the pain made him double up and he had a choice, either try to deal with the pain in his real form, or keep up the illusion and let it over whelm him. The choice was made for him by his body though, and he passed out in Pidge's arms to her utter shock.


	3. Chapter 3: Pidge's Dilemma

Pidge

"Great…now what do I do?" Pidge's first impulse had been to consider working on the pod, after all if she could get it up and working maybe there was a chance to get a frequency back to the castle. She pushed up her visor and started to fiddle with the internal engine and systems, after pushing up the hood of the pod and bending over to hook up her cables. Once they were in place she started to calibrate the system, running checks to see what was causing the interference: the weird wavelength she flew through (which she honestly thought was the cause) or the blast she'd taken by the fighter that had vanished over the horizon.

"Either way, it's going to be hard to work with, with all this moisture," she bemoaned to herself as she watched the numbers and waves flicker on the table she held. A frown came over her face as she sat beside the wreck. "Maybe if I shift the modules around it could help the system run better and then convert the code to something a bit simpler it could get through…"

Her fingers flew across the screen, looking for any way to convert what she knew of Altean language to regular script, after all numbers were numbers, but her knowledge wasn't perfect yet, and while she understood some of what the symbols before her meant she wasn't sure of them all, and Coran wasn't there to help her figure it out. Pidge sighed, and grumbled, she should have studied harder on her off time, but at least she had the computer on her arm to help her figure things out. It held the schematic of the pod, and that was a huge advantage to her at the moment.

Her thoughts were buried deep in her work so she wasn't paying much attention to the world around her. Noises blurred, came and went, and she figured out that most were just animals hopping around the trees. If she stayed away from them, they wouldn't bother her, and if anything that she couldn't handle came by, she'd just duck into the pod and stay there until it left. At least that had been her plan, that changed however when she picked up the sound of something buzzing in the distance and then the sound of crashing not even a hundred feet from where she was downed.

Sitting up she listened carefully and decided to move a bit closer to where the noise was coming from. Pidge hated to leave her work, but she knew that the diagnostic would take a while to run, and it was better to know what she was going to be dealing with then get jumped by surprise; so she gathered up her gear, dumped it into the cockpit, and locked the pod as best she could, covering it with some broken branches for camouflage, before heading out to find out what was making all the racket.

She used her bayard to get around faster, lifting her up from branch to branch and scanning the area. Again she heard the noise and at around fifty feet from the pod crash she called out, "Is someone there?! Can you hear me?"

A shout came back, "Help! Oh is someone there! Please help me!"

Pidge didn't need a second thought, she followed the pleas for help, and raced along the forests upper branches, keeping a look out for the owner.

"Hey can you hear me?" she shouted out, and while there was no response to the question, she did hear the calls for help getting louder and more direct.

"Please, if anyone is there! I need help! Please, they'll kill me!"

"I'm on my way! Hold on!" she cried out as she scanned the area. She was sure she had gone in the right direction. The voice was screaming out in pain and it was horrible to hear. Pidge gritted her teeth as she lowered herself down to a lower branch so she could see better and gasped when she saw a group about ten Galra solider robots attacking a single man dressed in what looked like rags to her.

 _No way, no way, no way,_ she thought to herself as got closer to the scene. She was right above them and shouted at the group, through gritted teeth, "Hey! Leave him alone!"

Pidge dove at the robots, swinging ala Tarzan, yelling the famous yell as she did so and slamming her feet into one of the robot's heads, causing it to twist around and tumble into another. With two down she descended onto the floor of the forest, slashing at one of the robots, who had turned to see what had caused the issue for the other two. The robot fizzled then exploded some, sending bits flying. This made another turn to fire on her, only for Pidge to dive out of the way and the fire to hit the shooters partner who was next to it.

This confused the other bots, which pidge used to her advantage and shot her grappling hook around another tree. Then let out a whistle, which caught the robots attention. They ran towards the sound, causing three of them to fall on top of one another and become a tangled mess. Pidge jumped on to the back of the top of the pile and pulled herself up onto another branch, nearly losing her balance as the remaining three robots returned fire.

"Whoa," she yelped, catching herself and finding cover behind the trunk. Thinking quickly she noticed a tree branch that was loose not too far from where she was. A plan formulated, and she raised her brow. _Well as Lance says, there's merit in cartoons._ And she went for the opposite tree. Avoiding the blasts as best she could, Pidge landed on the branch beside the lose one. The motion caused the robots to follow after and soon enough they were poised right under the branch firing up. Taking a breath Pidge lunged out from her hiding place and sliced then kicked at the branch. With three well timed strikes of her foot and bayard the whole branch collapsed from the tree and smashed down into the three remaining robots, sending sparks flying from the ensuing explosion.

"Not good," she muttered as she lowered herself to the ground. _Someone's bound to have heard that._

Moving cautiously, but quickly, she made her way over to the injured party, a lone male that was dressed in what looked like a really dirty set of off white pants and a short sleeved kimono shirt. The man had on no shoes, and looked like he had been through a lot. His hair though was clean, or mostly clean, and pulled back from his young face. He was breathing hard and slow, his eyes closed, or at least they seemed slightly closed.

Pidge reached a gloved hand touched his shoulder and the young man looked up at her with a pair of scared brown eyes. She was worried, he wasn't in good shape at all, and she wasn't a medical person, only knowing what her mother had shown her in dressing cuts and such from her work as a nurse at home. This was more than a minor burn and some bad cuts from a fist fight.

"Are you okay? Uh…Hello?" she asked, not knowing if he could understand or not. Pidge held out her hand to him, hoping that the gesture would convey a friendly attitude. The translator in the helmet normally worked but there was always a chance that in ten thousand years there could be a new language or two that had been developed that it didn't recognize. Still it was worth the chance given his condition. The young man looked at her oddly for a moment, as if trying to understand something, or debate something, and then he slowly sat up and took her outstretched hand and then looked at it.

Pidge stood there nervous as his eyes took in her whole form, it made her feel weird, as if he was sizing her up so she tried to remain as calm and confident as possible, like Shiro, Keith, lance and Hunk managed to when they were under pressure. For whatever reason that seemed to work, because he seemed to relax after a moment or so.

"Ah, yes, thank you miss…" he started to say, when Pidge watched as he doubled over from what she had to assume was a lot of pain, and he passed out in her arms to her utter shock. Pidge caught him as he slumped and realized he was heavier then he looked.

"Hey, hold on a minute, can you at least stand for me?" she asked as she tried to pull him to his feet. It was a no go as he seemed to lean heavily on her. She sighed and wrapped her arms around his chest under his arms, pulling him slowly along the floor, trying not to leave a trail. "I guess the answer is no."

"You know, you're kind of heavy," Pidge said to herself as she walked, hauling the sleeping man along with her. "Of course you are, you're dead weight at the moment. Wonder where you're from and who you are? Well you're not gonna answer in this state."

Again she sighed as she dragged him all the way back to the pod where she laid him down next to the ship. Pidge took off her helmet and sighed, the man had not moved and she leaned over to check his pulse on his neck, he seemed to have a human form so she assumed that he probably had some similar physiology like an earth human.

"Although with my luck he'll turn out to be a Galifrian and have two hearts or something." She muttered as she felt for a heartbeat. Thankfully one showed up and she let out a breath that she didn't know she had been holding.

Crouching down she leaned against the ship and thought a moment as she looked over his form. There was bruising on his face from hitting into something, cuts from where he'd probably hit the ground from a fall of some sort, bruising on his arms and a slight burn from a blaster bolt hitting him in the leg. Pidge rubbed her head as she put on her glasses. Was there enough supplies to help him, or not? And if there was, then what about if she got hurt? Could she waste them on a guy that she didn't know or trust?

Pidge closed her eyes and put her head in her arms as she sunk to the ground, her knees pulled up to her chest, "What am I gonna do with you? I'm not sure if I have enough supplies to help you out."

"Mezragor leaves," she heard him mutter and she looked up to see the young man, who was sweating now, muttering with his face up to the sky.

"What?" she asked and he repeated it.

"Mezragor leaves. They grow…on the trees here. They can make…something to sooth, a burn. Please…can you get some?"

"Of course!" Pidge said getting up right away, then paused. "So what do they look like and where can I find them?"

The strange young man weakly pointed with his finger at some smaller palm like trees. "There, those are Mezragor trees. You're going to want the smaller leaves at the bottom, the larger ones are way to strong and will knock me out."

"So it will help your leg?" she asked and he nodded. "Good enough for me."

Putting her helmet back on Pidge grappled up towards the tree that the stranger had pointed too, and found herself quickly surrounded by a tranquility that she'd only felt when alone atop the garrison with her machines. Mezora was turning out to be a rather calm place, "Minus the whole being shot down and killer robots on the loose."

Not wanting to take too long and leave the stranger alone with her pod, Pidge gathered a collection of smaller leaves and headed back to the crash site. The stranger had not moved, and was resting again, very stiffly. She gently nudged him with her foot as she held the leaves, and he looked up. "Hey I have them, now tell me what to do."

The young stranger turned his head to her, "Take them and smash them up, you want to make them a paste, so add little bits of water until they're like dough or cream or…"

"Oatmeal?" she asked him quizzically and he blinked.

"What is that?"

"It's a pasty breakfast food that we eat where I'm from," she said as she rummaged around for something to collect the cut up pieces of leaves. Pulling out a bowl and a piece of metal that had fallen off, she used her bayard to create a knife and started to cut the leaves then put them in the bowl.

"And where is that?" he asked curiously.

"Ah, no where you know of." She said and glanced over at him. "Do you have a name? I'm Pidge."

"Pidge? Like a bird?" he asked and then chuckled, "That's an odd name for a girl."

"Yeah…" she stared and then stared. "How do you know I'm a girl?"

Again he seemed to find something amusing and Pidge raised an eyebrow, "You're voice, the way your face looks, you're eyes. You have the voice of someone female."

"No I don't," she said quickly and again he laughed.

"Yes you do, but no matter, if you like to pretend you're a guy then that's fine with me. I don't care at the moment Paladin."

This made her pause again and she held the knife out to him, "Okay talk, who are you?"

"Can you help me first, please?" he asked in a kinder tone and she lowered her gaze. He sighed, "I assure you, Pidge, I mean no harm to you. I've heard of Voltron before, there are legends in my worlds lore of the Paladins of old."

"Paladins of old?" she inquired as she went back to cutting. He nodded slowly. "Like what?"

"It's hard to think with the pain, miss."

"Sorry, right, you got shot. Why…why were you running from those robots?" She put the chopped leaves into the bowl and got a small amount of water from the pod and poured it in. Then started to mash the mix together until a paste started to form.

The stranger struggled to form words, his eyes kept closing. Pidge sighed, there would be no way to get info out of him until he could talk normally, and it was clear that he was having a hard time at the moment dealing with the wounds he had.

"So I put this on your bruising and cuts and the blast right?"

"Yes, that's right." He still had his eyes closed and had not moved. Pidge reached over and dipped her fingers into the bowl with her gloved hand and started to smear it on his face. He didn't seem to mind it but it wasn't spreading right, and she grunted softly. "This isn't going to work, hold on."

A second later her gloves came off and she used her fingers to spread the paste over his wounds. His skin felt weird, slightly cold, but also a bit off. As if there was some sort of film over his face. She assumed it was a form of perspiration, but wasn't about to ask as it wasn't her place at the moment. Still the whole thing felt a bit awkward at first, he was someone she didn't know and she was fixing him up. The whole situation reminded her of the weird romance novels that her mother would read from time to time, which normally made her roll her eyes.

"Done," she said when she had him covered, but there was no response, he'd gone to sleep. Pidge sighed and shook her head. "Well at least this should help you right? I guess back to work."

She got up and shuffled back over to the ship, pulling out the tablet and cables and went back to trying to fix what she understood how to. Ships she got, guys was a whole different issue entirely.


	4. Chapter 4: Lotor's Choices

Lotor

How long he was sleeping for he didn't know. It had been odd talking to this girl who was his enemy like they were just friendly civilians meeting for lunch or something. Her hand had been warm and soothing and that was something that he had not expected at all. Humans were a strange species, more like Alteans then he had thought and yet so vastly different.

Lotor slowly opened his eyes and glanced around him. In the time that they had last spoke she'd pulled some larger leaves over him to keep him warm, started a small fire, and was now sleeping inside the pod. Night had fallen and he was feeling better. In the dark he felt safe to drop part of the illusion, leaving the eyes and height, as it would be hard to replicate that again, and laid there letting the medicine of the plants heal him. He was, annoyed, not only with himself for being stupid enough to not bring some first aid, but with the robots for attacking him so savagely. He needed to be able to move, and this injury wasn't helping.

Slowly he sat up and ripped a sleeve of the shirt off, tore it into strips, and wrapped it around his leg where the blast had hit. The bruising felt better, but the burn would take longer. He was going to have to reapply the paste later in the morning. Hunger ate at his stomach. He longed for some food but knew that if he moved around too much she would wake up and see him, so he held his head down and kept quiet, letting the night air and the sounds lull him back to sleep.

It wasn't too long before the light of day was cresting over the horizon and Lotor felt the rays hit him in the face. He got up quickly, noting her sleeping form, and slipped off to gather his thoughts. They were going to need some food, and from what he knew there was some edible plants in the area. Scavenging, he carefully selected the ones he thought were the most likely to be edible and brought them back to the crash site.

By the time she woke up Lotor had already laid out the food he'd found and shifted back to Prince Bokar's form before she could see him. He was looking at the food he'd collected trying to figure out what they were exactly, or rather, if he could eat them.

Pidge rubbed her eyes, "What's all this?"

"Food," he said bluntly and then waved his hand over them. "But I'm not sure if we can eat any of it."

"Uh, what do you mean by, eat any of it?" She tossled her hair and he tilted his head, it was, in a word, rather a cute motion to make. He found it amusing, almost, endearing. A smirk slipped on his lips before he forced it away and said simply.

"You know," he motioned with his hands, "eat. Devour, consume, ingest, feast upon," he watched as she lowered her lids and brow in a 'are you seriously thinking I'm that stupid' way and he lowered his head. "My apology. I did not mean to make you think that I meant to imply in any way that you were being…"

"Stupid," she intoned dryly and he nodded sheepishly.

"Yes," he started and then tilted his head. "Are all humans as dry as you are?"

"What?" she blinked, and he stared at her confusion then realized what he had said and quickly backtracked as she asked cautiously, "How do you know I'm human?"

"Well, it's simple enough. There are rumors about Voltron, the legendary defender of the universe, running around. It's clear to me that you, most definitely, are not Altean, but are clearly in their making. There was talk of the Galra Empire capturing prisoners from a space craft off in a farther sector of the systems. And, judging by the fact that you're not from around here, I'm going to surmise that you are one of the same species that was brought in from that sector." He let slip a confident smile as he closed his eyes and heard Pidge snort.

"Wow, that's…actually impressive, for someone who's dressed as a prisoner." Her brow narrowed as she scanned the food.

"What are you doing?"

"Seeing if they're edible," Pidge explained and then smirked at him. "You did say you wanted to know if they're able to be 'consume, ingest, and feast upon'. Am I right?"

"Well yes," he admitted. "I did. At least you figured that much out. And what do you mean by dressed like a prisoner? I am one, or rather…was one," Lotor told her and she nodded as she let her computer run its computations.

"Well, then, who are you? I asked you yesterday but you seemed so out if it that you never gave me a proper name to call you by. So, who are you?"

Lotor set his hands on his knees and gave her a bow from his waist, "I am Prince Bokar, of Mezora. Son of King Alazan, who was an ally to King Alfor back in the day."

Pidge looked up confused, "Wait a minute. How can that be?"

"How can what be?" he lifted his body up and crossed his arms. "You don't believe I'm a Prince?"

"No, I do, your attitude is a dead giveaway," Pidge pointed out, making Lotor 'tch', and she ignored it as she went on, "but how can your father be an ally to King Alfor? It's been Ten thousand years since…" she paused, not wanting to say more or give out any info about Allura that could get back to Prince Lotor or his men.

"Since his death you mean," Lotor said softly and she nodded. He rubbed his head with the palm of his hand and sighed, "I'll explain in more detail after we eat, but for the most part the people of Mezora are long lived. We keep records of history that most have forgotten."

"You're surprisingly affable for a being that lives for a long time," Pidge commented as she finished her scan and Lotor let out a snort crossing his arms.

"I'm a baby compared to most of my other brethren." He glanced down at the mixture of plants, fruits and nuts that he'd gathered. "So? What can we eat?"

"Um…well it says that these two are okay," she pulled out a melon looking type fruit and a plantain type bunch of fruit, then rooted through the rest, "and this fungus here," she pulled out three of the same type of mushrooms, "and this grass and these…I guess you can call them sugar cane, or bamboo…plants. And these acorn like seeds here."

Pidge pulled out the remaining plants then pushed the rest to the side. Lotor pointed, "So what's wrong with the rest?"

"Nothing, unless you want to either swell up like a beach ball from a rash, feel nausea for several days, or be put to sleep for a week." She explained and he scooted farther from the remaining items.

"I'll pass."

Pidge carefully sat for a moment or two clicking around on the computer in her gauntlet. "Hummm."

"Hummm?" Lotor looked at her in a board way. "Are we going to eat or just look at the wild life? And what exactly is a beach ball anyway?"

"It's a type of toy we have where I'm from. You toss it around when you play at a beach." Pidge explained without looking up and frowned, "And yes, unless you want to eat it raw, but apparently the canes have a really sour taste when they're not boiled, so I'm trying to look up some info how to cook them properly so we don't get sick." Murmuring softly to herself, "It's bad enough I can't get in contact with the others as it is, I don't need to pass out on top of my pod not working."

"What was that?" he scowled and Pidge pushed up her glasses.

"Look, I wasn't planning on having to rescue someone, and since you're from this planet shouldn't you already know how to cook this?"

"I…well…I…" Lotor wracked his brain to think fast. He'd never had to cook Mezora food since most of the meals he'd had while there were already made. He cleared his throat, "I don't know how." He turned his head and snorted, "A prince doesn't cook food for himself. That's more the grounds for cook to do, or a commoner."

Pidge just rolled her eyes, "Fine, I'll try cooking it over a fire. We'll see how that goes." She glanced at his leg, "I assume you can move?"

"Well enough I suppose, yes." Lotor shrugged as she got up and dusted off her armor, then fixed her glasses.

"Good, you can help me gather fire wood and sticks to use to cook them."

Again he snorted, "A prince doesn't gather wood…"

"Then a prince doesn't eat," Pidge rounded on him and narrowed her gaze. Lotor stared back challenging her, ready to come back with something witty, but at the moment he was tired and hungry and didn't much feel like it.

Raising his palms to the air he sighed. "Fine. I'll help you look for fire wood, but don't expect me to cook it as well."

He got up with her help, playing up the injury more than it really hurt at the moment as she added. "Oh wouldn't dream of it. I don't feel like eating charbroiled fruit."

Again he scoffed and followed her slowly down into the forest below. Once they were out of sight of the pod he stretched slightly, and watched her like a hawk. The Green paladin was certainly no fool, he would have to take his time with this one, but he knew the charade couldn't last forever. As they walked Lotor made markings in his head where they had gone and which path they'd taken. Each step was slightly painful as the burn was still sore, but he'd soon deal with that, and it was going to be satisfying wrecking those damn robots after this was all done in practice.

Pidge had been scanning around, he noticed and barely came to a halt when she stopped. Lotor put a hand on his hip and sighed, "Now what?"

"Hold on, I'm picking up a reading," she was saying when they both heard a low growl. Freezing in place he looked over her shoulder at her computer monitor and saw that it had picked up a heat signature not too far off. It was large, and clearly feline in shape and movement. The thing crawled down off some rocks and seemed to be making its way towards them.

"I've never seen anything like this before, it's like a saber-toothed tiger," Pidge was muttering when Lotor grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her into the nearest bushes. "Hey!" Then dove in after, covering her mouth with his hand to keep her quiet. She was about to protest, he could feel her breath and her lips getting ready to move against his palm (it actually tickled a little), when she went silent.

"Shhh," he commanded, staying as quiet as he could and let her mouth go. Pidge nodded and both carefully peered out of the long leaved plant that they were hiding in. Down the very path that they had been walking lumbered a large tiger like beast with spines on the back. Its fangs dripped and its dark blue eyes seemed to scan the area. Clearly it was in defensive mode and it was sniffing the air as it crouched and paused on the path.

Lotor held his breath, watching. If worse came to worse he'd force Pidge to fire upon it and then they'd run back to the ship. He wasn't sure if he would leave her behind, or not, but as the moments ticked by he found himself unable to do that to the young woman with him. He was a leader first and foremost, and his goal was to get information from her, having her dead would do him no good.

His voice was low to the side of her helmet, "If that beast comes this way, fire once then run, I'll be right behind you."

"No," Pidge stated flatly and Lotor shot her a dark look. She glanced back, "I'm a Paladin; my job is to protect others. You're unarmed, I'm not. I have a better shot of avoiding attack, you don't."

"What do you…" he started to whisper in a hissing voice when she motioned to her back and he could see rocket boosters for flight. Rolling his eyes slightly he muttered, "Oh."

"Yeah, so again, if that creature comes this way, you run, I'll follow you, okay?"

"As you command, Paladin." He said softly and they watched as the cat creature pawed the ground, sniffed it again, and then, after stalling for several seconds, started to move once more down the path in a slow gallop.

Both breathed out, not realizing that they were holding it in so deeply. Lotor shook his head, "Well that was exciting."

"Yeah, but what was it. I've never seen that type of cat before." Pidge admitted standing up.

"Nor I," Lotor frowned. It was true that there were several wild beast in the area, but most stayed far from the city. He found it odd that the creature had wandered out so far from the boarder that they had established. Furrowing his brow he thought of the distance between the specially created boarder energy gates that had been designed and the city itself. There should have been no reason that the beast could have gotten into the area without some help, or the gate dropping. It was like a wall, tall and wide, and while vehicles, Galra officers, and the civilians of the city could get though…Normally animals like the feline that they had just seen couldn't.

Pidge had already stood up and was dusting herself off, "We should move from here before it comes back. Lotor nodded and followed her actions.

"A fine suggestion, but which way to go?"

"Well we don't want to head in the same direction as it, soooo…" she peered at her computer, then pointed in the opposite direction that the beast had loped away in. "That way. We can circle around back to the ship once we get enough wood to cook."

"Fair enough." He agreed, still off in his own world making calculations on how far the beast would travel before it got noticed. The gates were around five hundred and fifty meters away from the city, if the feline was traveling as slow as it was, it would have taken it several hours to get to where they were at the moment, possible a day or two. If they were waiting for his signal as he supposed, then they probably would catch the cat before it got to close to the city.

As he was stepping out he paused when Pidge was staring at him.

"What? What's wrong?"

"You're ears," she pointed at his head, "They're…um…pointed."

 _Fiznark_ , he cursed and covered them and turned away. _What do I say now? Damn, this wasn't supposed to happen like this…_

He could feel her eyes narrow on him, clearly curious about what was going on. Cautious, and he knew he was going to have to watch what he said next.

"I…I don't want you to look at them. They…They're hideous," in some ways this was true. To a number of members of his race they were part of the identifying cause of his weakness, his Altean blood. His height was another issue as was his hair, but he'd learned long ago that his looks were actually a plus for him, allowing others to get close without feeling threatened and he was able to charm them.

"They're not that bad," he could feel her rolling her eyes at him as he turned to face her, still covering the ears, willing them to change back. He'd lost concentration and worried if it would happen again.

"They…They're not?" an act, although it surprised him that she was being sarcastic about it. Pidge waved it off as if it was nothing and shook her head.

"No, they're just pointed. Although, does this make you part Altean? Or does all your race have pointed ears?"

Lotor slowly lowered his hands. Well this was going to be easier then he planned. He wanted to smirk but kept a slightly glum disposition, "I…my mother was Altean, sadly she passed when I was young…" it was so easy to tell the truth and weave it into this fabrication. "I…I've always been embarrassed by them. Thankfully my people never really noticed them all that much, well until the Galra came. They saw them as part of a weakness and decided that it would mean I would have skills to disguise myself and slip away. Ha, as if I could, my mother never had time to teach me any of that. "Again truth blurred into fiction as he talked, and it found it fairly easy to tell her such idle facts about his past, as long as they were mixed in with the fabricated Bokar's story.

"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to…" Pidge started and he waved his hand as if to imply it was okay. She smiled. "Look if it helps, they're not bad. Heck you should even wear them as a badge of honor."

"Ah, really?" he snorted and crossed his arms. "And why is that?"

"Well, um, apparently there's not too many Alteans left." She told him and Lotor glanced down at her. "At least as far as I understand."

"I haven't met any myself," he lied and shrugged. "I suppose that could be true."

Pidge looked away, as if not wanting to say anymore. "Yeah, well, it's just something to think about. Don't go thinking that it's a bad thing to be Altean."

"They were a rich society," Lotor softly said and Pidge gave a little nod to that. "I suppose I should be glad that they are part of my heritage. But…I would think you would be less worried about my past and more worried about the wood."

"Actually I'm worried about both. You can shapeshift, so how do I know that you won't just wander off on me." Pidge crossed her arms and Lotor suddenly burst out laughing. She wrinkled her nose, "What's so funny?"

"What exactly am I going to shift into if I can hardly shift myself? I can only do ears. Maybe I should turn them into wings and fly off."

Again she rolled her eyes, "Whatever. Come on we need to find some wood and eat. I'm sure you're getting hungry too."

Lotor wiped his eyes as they started walking down the path. "Oh thank you for that Pidge Gunderson, that was truly a…"

The sound came softly, as if from the undergrowth. Almost a purring sound and both stopped dead in their tracks.

"Did you say something?" they spoke in stereo, and Pidge responded first.

"No, did you?"

Lotor shook his head and the sound came again, only this time is was more of a meow. Glancing at one another the duo bent over slowly and pushed back the leaves of a larger bush on the side of the path. Peering out at them was a small cub like creature that looked like a miniature version of the cat that had passed them a few moments before. The cub looked up at them with young and inquisitive eyes. Another meow came from its mouth, and it growled some as it stood and stretched.

Carefully and slowly they closed the bush leaves and Lotor took a deep breath, "I believe, Pidge, we have a bit of a problem."


End file.
